Chatter from your Charm City Neighbors

Posts Tagged ‘O’Malley’

Here on the changeable banks of Baltimore harbor we tire quickly of alternative monikers.

In 1812, we lived in Mobtown. More recently, we’ve been dubbed Crabtown, Queen of the Patapsco, and Nickel Town (Nikel Bag Town?). A 1975 ad writer coined for us the marvelously subjective nickname “Charm City.”

Speaking subjectively, now-governor Martin O’Malley declared us the “The Greatest City in America” when he became mayor.

In 2002, we declared we would thenceforth “BELIEVE” in Baltimore. Like, if you squint your eyes, you can believe those guys on the corner are slinging lemonade.

Many park benches are emblazoned with another motto of yesterday, “The City That Reads.” More like “The City that Breeds,” some snicker, for the out-of-wedlock pregnancy rate (hence our ubiqitous billboards for DNA Testing, reading “WHO’S THE DADDY?”). Others suggest the the motto could be “The City That Bleeds.”

But I digress! This weekend, we will read in Baltimore! The annual Baltimore Book Festival is nigh upon us and more than 200 authors will talk about reading Friday through Sunday evening.

Grunting away on the elliptical at Baltimore’s Downtown Athletic Center, I realized the spandex-clad guy next to me, preoccupied issuing mumbled curses at the TVs after Ravens’ fumbles, was Governor Martin O’Malley.

Honorable Gov. Martin O'Malley

This is my second O’Malley sighting at the flagship Merritt Athletic Club, where he apparently worked out daily as city mayor. Now based in Annapolis, his weekend workouts seem timed when he figures normal people have better things to do than hang out in a grimy gym (the first time I saw him it was Superbowl Sunday).

As I pedeled away, I imagined what I would tell our toiling public servent (he was on that machine for a while). I would implore him to help blaze a carbon-free energy future for Maryland, build bike lanes, and start a blind dog trust. Luckily for him, before I summoned the courage to interrupt his blithe Sunday afternoon workout, he skipped out to his hybrid Tahoe SUV–he sits in the back behind seriously dark tinted windows.

Which made me wonder… Why do famous people drive 6000-pound SUVs boosted on 20-inch wheels? This characterizes successful drug dealers, actors, sports stars; the jacked-SUV is also common around Capitol Hill. Is it an attempt to match their supersized egos? Or do they like other citizens fear red light runners–a numerous species in Baltimore–will ram them flat?

Either way, it might be interesting to inaugurate a Gawker Stalker-type tracking map for Charm City celebs, Tahoe or no. Top 5 on my map:

Soon we may be as energy-cool as Denmark’s Samso island. As Elizabeth Kolbert reported in the New Yorker the other week, turbines on and offshore here generate so much energy the residents sell it to the mainland. It’s worth noting their offshore turbines are giant–195 feet tall with spinning blades 120 feet long.

Hey, check out my dad on tv. He’s at the state legislative hearings on energy conservation. He says, “selling more electricity means we’re going to burn more coal and have more pollution.” Yeah conservation!!